Motorola Aims to Sharpen Its ‘Edge’ With Global Brand Platform
The Lenovo-owned company appeals to ‘change agents’ and influencers as the mobile alternative
Motorola’s “batwing” symbol is as recognizable as ever. And its smartphone sales are growing at a nice pace. But for Motorola, all that isn’t enough.
As it releases a trio of new phones, Motorola wants to be thought of as more than a budget alternative to mobile market leaders Samsung and Apple. Therefore, Motorola is taking this moment to refine, rather than completely refresh, its brand identity.
Starting with the marketing theme of “the power to empower,” Motorola is unveiling a new global brand platform, one that is meant to answer some fundamental brand questions: How does Motorola communicate its identity to consumers? And where can it carve out a niche in a smartphone space dominated by two undisputed hegemons?
The response, as Francois LaFlamme, Motorola’s vp, CMO, Europe general manager, explained it to Adweek, starts with connecting to consumers who consider themselves “change agents.” And it’s all manifested within its global brand platform, which LaFlamme said is meant to embody “an emotional as well as physical place for consumer connection.”
Motorola is specifically trying to lock into younger consumers who are open to alternatives to Samsung and Apple, which respectively represented 20.3% and 15% of smartphone sales in Q1 of this year, according to research from Gartner.
“We’ve already gone through several changes in our strategy, with the focus on increasing our profitability and our growth as a business globally,” LaFlamme said, discussing the company’s evolving marketing focus in the past few years. “As we went through this transformation, it really gave us the opportunity to take pause and think about how we could better—and more holistically—engage with our consumers.”
“We want to do something different from what others are doing in the industry. Ultimately, we want to be trusted and authentic,” said Francois LaFlamme, Motorola’s vp/CMO, Europe General Manager. Hello, Motorola; Goodbye LG
In April 2020, Motorola returned to its flagship Edge smartphone line for the first time in four years with two product releases. At the high end, the Edge Plus retailed for $999, a mid-range price point that was in league with Samsung and iPhone.
The message at the time: Don’t think of Motorola as the “cheaper” smartphone.
Having reestablished its flagship, the Edge Pro, Edge 20 and Edge 20 Lite hitting stores in August and September reflect the world’s very different circumstances. Aside from continued 5G support (in the fall) and the 108-megapixel camera, the new Edges are slimmer than last year’s models, particularly in price—the Edge Pro is listed as $699, and the Lite retails for $349.
The pressure to avoid the low-cost image is alleviated in part by Motorola rival LG Electronics’ exit from the smartphone market this year to shift its focus to the connected home and electric vehicles.
“It is symbolic of a new era in the smartphone market,” said Canalys analyst Sanyam Chaurasia in an April 2021 report. “It proves that aggressive pricing and channel strategy are more important than hardware differentiation in the modern day. LG holds the majority of its share in the Americas, at 80% of its total in 2020, which presents new opportunities for the likes of Motorola, TCL, Nokia and ZTE, particularly at price points below $200.”
Of course, affordability doesn’t stir consumers’ emotions. Brand affinity requires signs of principles and purpose.
That’s what’s behind Motorola’s curious March claim that it was the first mobile phone maker to support the indigenous language of people in the Amazon. It’s not about aiming for an untapped market in South America; it’s about making an impression with younger, more idealistic consumers. But it carries as many challenges as opportunities.
Motorola is specifically trying to lock into younger consumers who are open to alternatives to Samsung and Apple, which respectively represented 20.3% and 15% of smartphone sales in Q1 of this year, according to research from Gartner. Speaking consumers’ language
Motorola’s support of the pre-colonial Amazon languages of Kaingang and Nheengatu in Android 11 phones is the kind of marketing move that can open a minefield of reactions. It can be interpreted as a cynical, patronizing co-optation of the sympathies of earnest people who are calling attention to the plight of those historically impacted by colonization. Potential backlash aside, such gestures could also fall flat in the face of indifference from most smartphone shoppers.
But if handled with subtlety, Motorola’s addition of indigenous language accessibility can reasonably be viewed as a small, respectful appeal to people who hold cosmopolitan concerns.
When asked about the inspiration behind its embrace of multicultural sensibilities, LaFlamme dismissed suggestions that this was a roundabout way of acknowledging the racial reckoning that gathered force after the 2020 murder of George Floyd in police custody.
“Two, three years ago, we began an exercise to try to establish and codify who we are as an organization, what we stood for, what was important to us,” LaFlamme said.
The marketing team started that conversation about Motorola’s brand with its engineers. Being perceived as advancing technology was important. But for most consumers, “cutting-edge” tech is not much of a selling point. And Samsung and Apple have, at least at this moment, a seemingly unbreakable lock on battery life, camera resolution and other phone features. Even for those giants, claiming to be a particular innovator is a matter of degrees and is often met with a collective shrug. To connect with consumers on a brand level, a company has to dig deeper to strike an emotional resonance.
Motorola’s conversations continued across its entire organization as it tried to envision the brand’s purpose and what motivates feelings about the company’s identity.
Having reestablished its flagship, the Edge Pro, Edge 20 and Edge 20 Lite hitting stores in August and September reflect the world’s very different circumstances. “Ultimately, we want to be trusted and authentic,” LaFlamme said. “We want to be recognized as diverse and inclusive. We want to be seen as disruptive —as agents of change. This brand platform is about engaging with customers who value those elements.”
Calling up Irrational Loyalty
Sol Marketing founder and CEO Deb Gabor told Adweek that Motorola needs to push itself much further to achieve the differentiation it desires. The void left by LG is one opening on price. And the fatigue felt by those younger iconoclasts Motorola is trying to appeal to may make them open to a brand that defies the “bigness” of Samsung and Apple.
“If I were the person in charge of branded Motorola, I might be wanting to enact a Carl’s Jr. strategy,”
From a branding perspective, Carl’s Jr. is regarded as an outlier, a disruptor in the whole fast-food burger space by being the antithesis of McDonald’s and Burger King, Gabor said. Can a 90-year-old mobile phone brand take a page out of a quick-serve restaurant’s menu?
“If I were Motorola and I wanted to take up a piece of this market, I would create irrational loyalty with anyone but people who self-identify as influencers. Play the outlaw, Motorola, and look for those consumers who thumb their nose at big brands like iPhone and Samsung. It’s a safe bet a lot of those people are out there.”